South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020 by declaring that the country "needs a fresh start."
Dwight Adams and Vic Ryckaert, Indianapolis Star

The openly gay mayor of a small Indiana city and a rising star in Democratic circles officially became the latest to join a bustling field for his party's presidential nomination.

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg officially launched his campaign for president with a video message promising to bring a "fresh start" to the White House.

"The reality is there's no going back," Buttigieg said in the video. "There's no such thing as 'again' in the real world. We can't look for greatness in the past."

The 37-year-old military veteran has been widely hailed as a rising figure in national politics since his unsuccessful 2017 run for Democratic National Committee chairman. But he's relatively unknown on the national level and faces an uphill battle in a primary field dominated by U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and other better-known leaders in the party.

Soon after losing a 2010 campaign for Indiana state treasurer, Buttigieg (pronounced boot-edge-edge) took office as South Bend's mayor in 2012. In his campaign video, he points to national headlines that once called South Bend a dying city. He led the city of 100,000 residents to a comeback, he said, "by taking our eyes off the rear-view mirror."

South Bend's economic turnaround -- the city's unemployment rate tumbled from around 10 percent at the start of Buttigieg's tenure to less than 4 percent late last year -- is a blueprint for what could be done across America, he said.

Buttigieg, just 29 when he was elected, is the youngest mayor of a U.S. city with at least 100,000 residents.

The Rhodes Scholar and former officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve also worked for consulting firm McKinsey & Co. before becoming mayor of the Rust Belt city that's 90 miles east of Chicago and home to the University of Notre Dame.

Buttigieg served a tour in Afghanistan in 2014. Wednesday's campaign video includes photos of him wearing camouflage fatigues apparently taken while he was on duty.

Should he emerge ahead of other Democratic hopefuls, Buttigieg would be the first openly gay major-party presidential nominee.

CLOSE

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg is considered a popular young leader in the national Democratic Party. Here's why.
Dwight Adams/IndyStar

Appealing to young voters

In his video, Buttigieg uses his age as a way to connect with young voters.

"I belong to a generation that is stepping forward right now," Buttigieg says. "We're the generation that lived through school shootings, that served in wars after 9/11, and we're the generation that stands to be the first to make less than our parents unless we do something different."

The video shows Buttigieg and his middle school-teacher husband in their kitchen, arms around each other, and on the couch with a dog. Buttigieg came out as gay in 2015 and married Chasten Glezman in June.

Voices from South Bend

Count James Summers among Buttigieg’s supporters. The semi-retired former Whirlpool executive and business consultant points to the success of a 2,200-square-foot business resource center in South Bend as a sign of the mayor’s promise on a national stage.

The idea for the recently opened West Side Small Business Center that Summers helps run came from Buttigieg’s office as a response to a racial wealth divide in South Bend, which is substantially more diverse than is Indiana as a whole.

Semi-retired business executive James Summers stands outside South Bend's West Side Small Business Resource Center, a facility that Mayor Pete Buttigieg helped open and that Summers helps run.(Photo: Mike Berardino)

“Mayor Pete and his people have just been completely supportive,” said Summers, 67. “His whole attitude about turning the city around has been great. I think that attitude would be beneficial for the entire country.”

The number of active and prospective businesses on the facility's client list has more than doubled, from 78 to 182, in the four months since its ribbon-cutting.

With funding from the city, the business resource center was able to secure and build out its current location, which includes publicly available computer stations, private meeting rooms and a large conference room. The annual budget of $125,000 comes entirely from donations, both from area corporations and nonprofit groups, one of which Summers chairs.

Buttigieg, Summers said, “really pays attention to all of the businesses, not just the big businesses, and he’s conscious of those who have been kind of disenfranchised and kind of left out.”

And while Buttigieg is sure to tout such small-business initiatives along with his “1,000 Homes in 1,000 Days” program, his critics figure to point to some of South Bend’s more persistent problems, said Elizabeth Bennion, a political science professor at Indiana University-South Bend since 1999.

“Although violent crime as a whole is down, we still do have a problem with homicides.” Bennion said. “...We also have lot of people with low income and living in poverty, and that hurts people of color disproportionately. There are folks who are feeling left behind in South Bend, as they are elsewhere.”

'A shot worth taking'

Pundits don't give Buttigieg much of a chance — but they understand why he's taking one anyway.

"He is a long shot, but this could be a shot worth taking," said Andy Downs, director of the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics. "Even if he doesn’t earn the nomination, he will continue to raise his national profile."

Losing could be still a win for Buttigieg, Downs said.

"If he is able to beat expectations in terms of polling, acceptance by party leaders ... and raising money, he could find a number of doors opening up for him," Downs said.

Larry Sabato, a longtime election analyst at the University of Virginia, said the mayor is historically young for his ambitions and his resume topper — leader of a small Indiana city — is about as far as you can get from a traditional path to the presidency.

"He’s stuck as mayor of South Bend," Sabato said, "so what does he do for an encore? He's decided he's running for president. He's a long-shot, but so was Donald Trump."

Sabato, who suggested that Buttigieg has few options for higher office in Republican-dominated Indiana, calls him an interesting character with a lot of strengths who would fill a historic niche if nominated.

"We're a year away," Sabato said, "and we all know the odds are very substantially against him, but strange things happen in politics."

LGBT advocates see hope in candidacy

While LGBT advocates realize Buttigieg is a long-shot to win the Democratic nomination, they see hope in his candidacy.

Chris Paulsen, CEO of the LGBT-service provider Indiana Youth Group, said she's thrilled "Mayor Pete" is in the race.

"His run gives our community hope that they can aspire to higher office, especially the youth," she said. "This just shows what the LGBTQ community can do."

She said there was quite a bit of buzz when Buttigieg came out as gay. She expects that will carry over now that he's formed an exploratory committee to run for president.

"There was a big buzz that there was a mayor of a midsized city who was openly gay, especially a city in the Midwest," she said.

"I think he’s proven when he ran for DNC chair that he can get around the country and play well in front of different groups and he has a story to tell with his civic involvement and his military involvement, his education, his common sense, and oh yeah, he's gay."

Sutton and Paulsen said news of Buttigieg's candidacy was especially welcome in light of news out of Washington, D.C., of note to the LGBTQ community.

"The Supreme Court decided that transgender people don’t count," Sutton said. "I have every confidence in the world that President Buttigieg would not nominate justices to the Supreme Court, or any federal attorney or judge who would feel similarly."

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg speaks to the media, after deciding to run for the Democratic National Committee Chair in January 2017.(Photo: Michael Caterina/South Bend Tribune)

Buttigieg has been gradually raising his national profile before announcing he would not seek a third term as South Bend's mayor in December. He's visited Iowa and other battleground states in recent years in an effort to build national support and name recognition.

Earlier this month, Buttigieg wrote “A response to the President” on the online publishing platform Medium, following President Donald Trump’s national address regarding the border wall. He criticized Trump and reminded readers that there are other leaders emerging --- “Some you’ve heard of, and some you haven’t.”

“We saw a president use a humanitarian problem on the Southern border, one that he himself created, to justify keeping the government shut down — in order to demand a policy most Americans believe is wrong. That is not how the presidency is supposed to work,” Buttigieg wrote.

In an email to media Wednesday, Republican National Committee spokesman Michael Ahrens said Buttigieg should focus on filling potholes and reducing crime before he "wastes time on a presidential campaign."

"His bid isn't just bad news for residents," Aherns said, "it's more proof that Democrats are about to endure the most crowded, divisive and contentious primary in history."

Buttigieg is expected to meet voters in Iowa next week, followed by stops in New Hampshire.